The Shuddering Yearning Ache of Contact
by MrsVonTrapp
Summary: Gilbert reflects on his frustratingly wonderful - and wonderfully frustrating - relationship with Anne, from the time of their first meeting, to their first dance and beyond. This encompasses all seasons of Anne with an E up to Season 3 Episode 5, lightly touching upon the beginning of Episode 6.


**Author's Note**

Hello, _Anne with an E_-girls!

I am usually to be found on the _Anne _book series fandom, but thought I would have a first attempt at writing with the show in mind, which I have watched since the beginning and now enjoy on its own merits though I am an unashamed Sullivan-series girl! I still think the production quality on AwaE is stunning and the performances always engaging. I hope to get to know all of you in time as well as your wonderful stories.

With special thanks to _oz diva _and _OriginalMcFishie _for their clever links to help keep me up-to-date with this season (no mean feat from Australia!) and to _elizasky _who always said I should just go ahead a try an AwaE story!

Very Best Wishes

MrsVonTrapp x

* * *

_**The Shuddering Yearning Ache of Contact**_

* * *

"_Any dragons 'round here need slaying?"_ the boy he had been asked that long-ago day; that first day, when he joked of himself as knight-errant and she a damsel in distress, not yet knowing – perhaps never fully comprehending – that the dragons were real and many-faceted, and she was already so weary from battling the constant threat of their fire-breath on the back of her neck.

"_Who are you?" _was his further question then, as pertinent as now; and that, too, for her, was never an answer travelled in a straight line, but instead a road walked with many bends; of wrong ways and blind turns, or perhaps, like that first encounter, through a dark wood, menacing and haunted, her brave, determined steps desperately seeking the light out the other side.

She called herself an _enigma,_ in class not so long ago; purposefully puzzling and unknowable, almost exulting in the way she was so very exasperating. His father, who did not have time to know her well and yet was fonder of her than she knew, or at least the _idea _of her, once called women the Last Great Mystery. How much he was speaking from experience Gilbert was never able to ascertain, but he always seemed to wear the wistful sadness of could-have-beens, an air Gilbert learned later permeated Marilla Cuthbert, too. At any rate he could have been perfectly encapsulating Anne, right down to the way those clear blue eyes have stared at him lately as if stricken or even stupefied, before her brain catches up with her heart and she scuttles away.

He has no father now, but he has a friend, and Bash is at once both mentor and delighted _tor_mentor, offering sage-sounding advice that might be practical on a certain level but impossibly impractical when in relation to Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. He might indeed be tempted to tell baby Delphine of his private longings and public confusion, if he could make any sense of them himself. Instead, too often, whether it was over poor, brave Mary or that bewildering, baffling redhead, he could only offer the one heartbroken refrain; _I couldn't find the words and I made it worse. _

When he was stuck beneath the decks on the high seas, searching for meaning, or perhaps merely a means of forgetting, she made him remember Avonlea. She made him remember _her. __You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships! _** were the lines that wanted to fill his soul and its craving for the unknown, but instead his mind drifted back towards _her _ clutched her letter to him as his hammock-bed drunkenly swayed on the swell and his heart lurched likewise towards her. She wrote, quite crazily, of schemes to find gold, not realising the true treasure was in her prose; of her fleet-footed thoughts that landed like questing bees upon every single flower in the forest. She is no Queen Bee herself but the girls now follow her regardless, captured, as he has been, by her extraordinary imagination, by her wholesome heart and her singular spirit. He still remembers when she was lonely and bewildered and ostracized, unable to acknowledge him, and if he first offered an apple as Adam, Eden reversed, it was to her Eve. She was temptation, even then, and challenge and mystery and truth. He sought replies to his questions only to realise it was he who needed to ask them of himself.

She is _no coward soul _ * and encourages him to be the same, pushing him ever onward towards the precipice. Will he fall or will he fly?

She is half warrior, ready to take on the world, defiant and fearless; and simultaneously the most tremulous whisper-winged butterfly, delicate and fragile. He has sometimes mistaken which of her selves he has been dealing with, to his regret and occasionally his peril. A smashed slate may attest to his past foolhardiness, but her silence suffocates him. He needs her breath to give him life; to bring the reassurance of her remonstrations, if nothing else. When she is in one of her mercurial moods, of hot embarrassment and words that burn him where they land, it is still preferable to the ice of her ignoring.

And yet, it was fire and air that began to bring them together, even if she didn't know it; Ruby's house glowed as red as her name, and Anne was the one to know that a fire needs to breathe, too, and to deny it air was to help it extinguish itself. He faced her across the pit of Hell and knew later that this was her own baptism of fire, and maybe his, too, when boy began to morph into man.

_Nice Boys Never Say People Eat Insects… _he had offered her, when perhaps what he really wanted to commit to memory was _Never Before Noticing So Perfectly Enticing _an _Individual. _

* * *

He remembered there had been so much snow, the day they buried his father; caught in his hand and melting to a tear.

The relentless winter matched his frozen heart, which he feared might never thaw. It clutched and seized and pained inside his chest; a dull ache measured against the beat of his staggering steps.

The false warmth inside and the merry-sounding mourners… he could not stand the four walls of the house now his; he who was _the last… or the only. _Everything familiar had become strange, distant… even the discordant echo of _her _words as she offered not polite platitudes but an almost chipper discourse on how very fortunate he was to have been orphaned at such an advanced age, far better off than she… how _lucky _indeed… his astonishment was only equal to his disappointment and he cut her to the quick. He wanted her to take his hand in sympathy, not compare their circumstances in a schoolgirl study.

Later, of course, he would come to understand that it was just her way… that she had been cavalier not to be callous but as a cloak, protecting her from the lingering hurt of her parents' forever-absence, and that she had tried to share the threadbare warmth of it with him. And he was a little shamed… for she had been right, and he had so many things of his father to tie to, around and within him… and like his father he was already seeking, looking beyond their familiar horizon… _Healthy, free, the world before me… _**

On a Charlottetown street she _did _offer her hand, and he was very happy to shake it; to spell out _truce _and to know it meant _good luck and farewell._

* * *

He returned to Avonlea…. returned _home_… as a choice, not an obligation, as he himself had long proclaimed and as his father would have wanted, with the wind at his back and his face forward to new purpose and possibilities… and _the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. _**

He was much changed but found things less so, which was as reassuring as it was frustrating. He had seen, felt, tasted, drank from a cup so very different from these still and sometimes stagnant waters. _She _of course remained as unique as her everchanging hair, and just as intriguing. He had told her it was _good to see you _and it was. He might have had to gain his sea legs whilst away but he was on firmer ground with her now, and a candle blown out together seemed to light an understanding between them; a Christmas miracle of a rather different kind. He gave her a book for her pocket but it was the thought of _her _he was beginning to carry with him.

When his doubt began to feel like defeat, she would bolster him with wise words… _you'll get there, if you know where your passions lead you. _He knew that _Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was a passionate individual alright… _with a luminous joy in the _romantical, _so much so that everyone had been staring at Prissy Andrews walking down the aisle but Gilbert only saw Anne. Later, when Bash had found Mary and, even more of a challenge, had convinced her to be his, it made Gilbert ponder and wonder… they would not all be shackled to the schoolhouse forever, staring at one another across the divide. He wanted to be with his _family, _and if he could not quite yet consider her so, she was so much more than mere friend. But he was content, in the moment, to contemplate Anne in the entranceway of the church that had witnessed Bash and Mary's happy vows, to talk with her of the _lovely service _when he really wanted to say… that the loveliness was all _her._

* * *

He had always _Taken Notice _of her – _a cute girl is a cute girl _after all – and certainly didn't need a board on which to proclaim it, though his heart faltered upon her approach that day, with leading words that she meant to lead him to Ruby, but only confirmed what he already knew and wish she would recognise too… that it was _her _soul which spoke to his, and none other. Surely her precious _Jane Eyre _could have told her that? Miss Winifred might have given him tips in tea room etiquette – and a temporary thrill to be thus instructed - but Anne was the one to teach him about his own heart, as much as she was denying her own.

_There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand… _***

He had been so at odds with her, that trip to Charlottetown; he was bemused by Miss Cuthbert's ministrations, but belatedly realised Anne was furious not with himself but with such fussing. If she met him with fire he would rebuff her with ice, but with his devastation over Mary's diagnosis she became his unexpected balm. For once, she did and said exactly what he most needed… _You will be a wonderful doctor… Caring deeply will always be the right thing. _Her words… and later, her arms around him… spoke to some primeval need, some soul-ache, that only Anne could minister to. He had sobbed at the sight of his home, already the stage of unbearable grief and pain and death, and wondered how to be strong for those inside, when his strength had already been tested and found wanting. He would have clutched her to him till the end of time and it would never have been enough.

And it occurred to him, later, in his quiet hours of contemplation, that _she _had become rescuer to _him_; a genesis arc where their ending led to their beginning. And perhaps _his _path was not linear any more than hers was; not so much a _long brown path _as a circle; a journey folding back into itself_. _So he borrowed inspiration from her in the words he would give in remembrance of Mary, for Bash, and for Delphine… a baton passed, and a torch lit. _She _was the one to light it for him. Could he not then attempt to spark _her?_

* * *

_These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they? _**

_What am I supposed to want? _he had asked of his father, too late.

He didn't know that the answer might have been as simple as… a dance.

* * *

He could note patterns, lines, formations… there was sense and security… even science… in the repetition of the movements… in the end returning to the beginning.

_Set… turn… reel… set._ He could keep the beat. What he didn't reckon on was… _touch. _

At first, it was all a jangle of frayed nerves and flayed limbs… of mistimed steps and misdirection.

And then… music. And mayhem became… magic.

His smile sought hers; their eyes caught and clung, as if a secret shared. When he grabbed her hand and twirled her he felt he had staked a claim on her notice he had never before dared. Time slowed to the synchronicity of their matched movements; of a dance that was no longer a duel, but a duet.

_Camerado, I give you my hand! _

_I give you my love more precious than money, _

_I give you myself before preaching or law; _

_Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? _

_Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? _**

And then… Anne reacted exactly how Anne was wont to do. Her eyes, once windows, became shuttered. Her glorious smile packed away along with whatever feeling had just fuelled their exchange.

_Even these bees of yours dance. What was so confusing? _Bash had queried.

_If I feel…something… for a girl… does that mean she is the one I should marry?_

He was just an orphan, now, with nothing to offer but brave ambition and a hopeful heart. A heart that didn't quite know what – or whom – to hope _for_. He could not decide on a shirt, it seemed, let alone whom to love.

Perhaps it was time to enlist the help of baby Dellie after all.

* * *

**Chapter Notes**

_Italicised quotations from all three seasons of Anne with an E sprinkled liberally throughout._

*Emily Bronte from her poem _No Coward Soul is Mine._

**Walt Whitman 'Song of the Open Road' from Book VII in _Leaves of Grass _(1892).

_Readers will remember this is Gilbert's father's favourite poem, which he reads to him just before his death, and from where I also take my title._

***from Letter 2 in _Frankenstein _by Mary Shelley.

_I have enjoyed all the literary episode titles of this and the previous seasons – Bronte, Eliot and now Mary Shelley. I can't think of anything more adorable than Jerry quoting from 'Frankenstein' to Diana! I really wish Gilbert would get in on the act!_


End file.
